Lahore: Ali Zafar has filed a Rs 1 billion defamation suit at a district court against actor-singer Meesha Shafi, who accused him of sexual harassment two months ago on micro-blogging site Twitter. According to Geo News, the suit has been filed under the Defamation Ordinance 2002 and Zafar said Shafi damaged his reputation through false allegations. Zafar has said in the notice that Shafi had caused “tremendous injury” to his “reputation, goodwill, livelihood” through “false, slanderous and defamatory” allegations.The suit reads: “The tweet dated 19.04.2018 and the Instep Article dated 21.04.2018 are false, slanderous, and defamatory statements, stand published and originate from the defendant, therefore, have caused tremendous injury to the Plaintiff’s reputation, good will, livelihood; being attempts to tarnish the good image of the plaintiff.”“The defendant has associated herself with the global #MeToo movement, with one of the launchers of the #MeToo movement Rose McGowan labeling the defendant as ‘a heroine for our times’.”

Sharing this because I believe that by speaking out about my own experience of sexual harassment, I will break the culture of silence that permeates through our society. It is not easy to speak out.. but it is harder to stay silent. My conscience will not allow it anymore #MeToopic.twitter.com/iwex7e1NLZ

In the breakdown of the Rs 1 billion damages, the notice read: “Be that as it may, that due to the defamatory campaign being spearheaded by the defendant, the plaintiff besides special damages in case of defamation further suffered the following damages: Mental torture Rs 2 crore, Loss of contacts Rs 8 crore, Loss of reputation/goodwill Rs 50 crore, Loss of business opportunities Rs 40 crore.”Earlier, Shafi had confirmed she had received a legal notice sent by Zafar’s counsel, asking the singer-cum-actor to delete her tweet alleging harassment and issue an apology on Twitter, failing which he would file a Rs 1 billion defamation case against her. It was in April that Shafi took to Twitter to publicly accuse Zafar of physically harassing her on “more than one occasion”. Ali had denied the allegations, saying he would take the matter through the courts of law. IANS